Indeed, he had cause to wonder at the strangeness of fate. There he sat, eating his breakfast between the woman who had dominated him all his life, and the woman who fascinated him in the present, with ample opportunity to compare them with each other, and a determination not to do it. It seemed as though Diana's coming had roused his instincts of contrariety, as it had in Leonora, though for quite different reasons. Diana knew well enough, he thought, that she ruled him and could bring him to her feet in a moment. Why, then, if she did not want him herself, did she come and disturb his peace and happiness? She need not have prevented him from enjoying the society of a charming woman, but she undoubtedly would. He knew well enough that her presence must be a check on the daily and hourly intercourse with Leonora which he just now most desired. She would not believe in the friendship which had seemed so real to Leonora and so possible to himself. She would watch him with those grey eyes of hers that knew him so well, and when she had an opportunity, she would give him a wholesome lecture on the error of his ways. He knew Diana well, and she knew him better.
He was forced to confess that she was more beautiful, more stately, and more perfect now, at eight and twenty, than she had been ten years ago at eighteen; that, if she lifted her finger to him now, he would be more entirely her servant and slave than ever before; and that in the bottom of his heart he wished she would do so, as he wished no other thing in the world. At the same time he knew perfectly well that she would not, and he thought it was not fair of her to disturb an innocent friendship which had, by force of circumstances, assumed a peculiar aspect. She excited in him all the obstinacy which attends weakness—and Julius was a weak man where women were concerned. And whether he would or not, he made up his mind not to relinquish his daily enjoyment of talking to Leonora for all the Dianas in the world,—if it were only to please his own vanity.
The repast was somehow or other a success so far as Marcantonio was concerned. He felt that everything was proceeding as it should, that all his little plans had turned out well, and that he was a happy husband and a happy brother. He was in complete ignorance of Julius Batiscombe's daily visits to his wife during his absence. She had meant to tell him, honestly, how pleasant it had all been, and how much she had enjoyed it; but, somehow, the invitation to Batiscombe to stay in the house had made her put it off. Marcantonio was so odd about some things, and he was sure to want so many explanations; she could tell him just as well after Diana and Batiscombe were gone; and then, of course, it could not matter so much. She knew that Julius would never refer to all those days unless she herself did. If only that terrible Diana did not see or find out! How dreadful it would be to have her say anything to Marcantonio!
CHAPTER XII.
A country-house is a glass house. The more people there are staying in it, the more fragile and delicate are the walls, and the more probability there is that some one will be inspired by the Evil One to throw stones. Sometimes it happens that two or three of a party fight a pitched battle, and then some lucky lovers who have nothing to do with the hostilities are forgotten and overlooked in the din of war. But if there is one thing in the world more certain to get out than murder it is love, righteous or unrighteous. Lovers who desire secrecy should never go to country-houses together.
It seems to them as though each and every member of the household had especially adopted a set of vile and pernicious habits; a determination to be where they ought not, at all sorts of unexpected hours; to come skulking round corners under the empty pretext of seeking shade, and to be found lurking in wooded dells on pretence of studying natural history. There is the matutinal fiend, who shaves at the window in the grey dawn and sees people who have got up for an early walk; and, verily, they feel like worms when they glance up and see his beak and talons at the casement. There is also the demon that walketh in darkness, smoking a midnight cigar on the lawn before going to bed. There is the midday dragon, green-eyed and loathly to behold, who steals out in old gloves and a parasol immediately after luncheon, because she has left her glasses on the mossy seat under the trees, just out of sight of the house, and must needs find them. There is the vile and sickening bookworm, with his bland smile and unhealthy complexion, who dives into the library in the middle of the summer's afternoon, and ruthlessly opens the blinds to find a quotation, the eighteenth volume of an uncut rarity in vellum; and who wrinkles disagreeably all over when he observes the couple in the corner, staring like blushing owls in the sudden glare.
And, besides all these, there are the low earth-spirits,—a swarm of maids, butlers, grooms, stable-boys, and nurses,—who are supposed to dwell somewhere, underground, and are everlastingly appearing, like phantoms, noiseless and awful, with ears like vast trumpets of endless capacity and eyes of incalculable magnifying power.
A country-house is a terrible test of all the great virtues of mankind and a fearful reflector of all the vices. It is well to begin life in the country with an adequate certainty that, whatever you do, you will be found out, and that you will often be found out when you have done nothing. And a villa hired in the orange gardens of Sorrento, overhanging the murmuring sea and sweet with the breath of the rich south, is not different in this respect from a Yorkshire manor-house, a château in the south of France, or a "romantic retreat" on the Hudson River.
For two or three days after the events just chronicled, Leonora and Batiscombe managed successfully to spend several hours out of the twenty-four in each other's society. Marcantonio was busy during a great part of the time with correspondence concerning the politics of his party, and once he went over to Naples to see an eminent person on business. The four inmates of the house met at meals, and in the late afternoon, when they generally went out in the boat. Donna Diana occasionally sat with Leonora for an hour, and they talked to each other studiously, Leonora trying her best to make the time pleasant for Diana, and Diana doing what she could to cultivate her acquaintance with Leonora. At the end of two days it was perfectly clear that the two women would never be intimate. But they both concealed the fact from Marcantonio; and he rubbed his hands, and wrote his letters, and bought cartloads of things for his wife, in the comforting assurance that she was very happy and inclined to follow his wishes in regard to his sister.